Novartis completes share repurchase program

Leading Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis says that it has completed its fourth stock repurchase program initiated on August 9, 2004, and during which 47,575,000 Novartis shares were repurchased for a total of 3.0 billion Swiss francs ($2.49 billion). The average purchase price per share was 63.05 francs.

A total of 25,400,000 shares repurchased in this program were cancelled following the Annual General Meetings in 2005 and 2006. The remaining 22,175,000 from this program will be cancelled following the approval of shareholders at the next AGM in February 2008. Shares from this program correspond to 1.74% of the current Novartis share capital.